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Posted on: March 22, 2018

City receives "clean bill of health"

The Huntsville City Council received the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) at their meeting this past Tuesday. The presentation was given by Chris Pruitt of Pattillo, Brown and Hill, a certified public accountant firm that has completed audits for the City for the last five years.Pruitt informed the Council that his firm gave the City of Huntsville a “clean bill of health” for fiscal year 2016-17. A clean opinion means there are no material misstatements in the financial statements and the firm did not find any internal control issues that the auditors needed to report. Also included in the report was the City’s certificate of achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association in 2016 and is expected to be repeated in 2017, Pruitt added. The CAFR is given in four sections: introductory, financial, other supplementary information, and statistical.“My responsibility as the auditor is to express an opinion on the financials,” Pruitt said. “What that means in our professional opinion that your financials are free of material misstatement can be relied upon by a third party, such as a bank, bonding companies, and grading agencies.”Pruitt made a point to inform the Council that at the end of the 2017 fiscal year, unassigned fund balance for the General Fund was over $10.4 million of the total expenditures. He added that the fund is very healthy, in his opinion. He noted that the water and wastewater fund was also doing well.During the fiscal year 2016-17, for the General Fund, revenues were up by $1.8 million and expenditures were $1.2 million less than anticipated, resulting in a $3.1 million positive variance compared to budget.“In essence, we are giving the City of Huntsville a clean bill of health,” Pruitt said.